Not that it quite rivals the Wall Street Journal stealing a Pulitzer Prize out from under the local dailies’ nose with Bill McGuire’s United Health back-dating scam, but it’s a little embarrassing to miss a U.S. Senator — Larry Craig, aka “The Militia Senator” and “The Right and Honorable Senator of the Aryan Nation”, not to mention one of the far right’s High Priests of Gun Worship and Family Values — soliciting anonymous gay sex right there in our own airport.
WCCO TV’s Jason DeRusha over on MnSpeak.com offers this explanation why no one in town caught the Craig arrest back June or the court action earlier this month:
“1. Airport Police are a pain in the neck… and extremely secretive. Even yesterday, no one would come back to the office to send us the report or give us the mug shot. “They close at 4 p.m.” is what I was told.
“2. Because airport police is separate from Minneapolis Police, or the Sheriff’s office, media would have to go to the airport to request reports. The arrest information doesn’t leave their property, and as the charge was a minor charge, I don’t think it even went to the county attorney. It was like a ticket.
“3. No one locally would raise an eyebrow about a “disorderly conduct” at the airport for a guy named Larry Craig even if they saw the report’s front page.
“4. The plea deal at the courthouse happened the week after the bridge collapse. So the usual suspects who would have tipped someone off, were too busy with other things to even concentrate on this.
Someone nationally had to tip off Roll Call, the Capitol Hill Newspaper. That’s who broke the story.”
»» Submitted by »»» jderusha at 7:44 AM on August 28.
Earlier today I called the Star Tribune’s dogged Minneapolis reporter Rochelle Olson, surprised that she of all people hadn’t caught that one. “The name alone wouldn’t have meant anything to me,” she said. “Believe me, I wish I had. But I didn’t. Are you going to rip me?”
No. I’ve missed WAY too many good stories to lob stones over this, which as I say, isn’t quite on the same level as a billionaire ripping off shareholders and contributing to the outrageous cost of health care in this country. But since Olson has just about everything else in Minneapolis to cover, thanks to Avista/Par “right-sizing”, it is worth wondering aloud how maybe if the big paper did have more bodies working city government and cop beats, downtown and out with MAC, they might have had a source who would have tipped them to this particular “Larry Craig” flashing the card of a U.S. Senator after getting yanked out of toilet stall. A cop tipster was about the only way a local reporter would have gotten the story last June.
Meanwhile, I gotta ask, what gives with these guys? I mean Republican Congressman Mark Foley and the pages, McCain’s Florida guy Republican Bob Allen soliciting gay sex in a public restroom because he was frightened of black guys in the vicinity, uber-evangelical proselytizer Ted Haggard (wild guess — Republican) buying meth … meth! … and banging a gay body builder, Jeff Gannon credentialed by the White House as a reporter for Talon (virtual) press (wha?) and later revealed to have worked with a gay escort service, the chairman of the Clark County Republican Party out in Vegas fellating some kid while he slept, and now Larry “Wide Stance” Craig tapping feet in Minnesota, as well as Deputy Secretary of State Randall Tobias and his romps with a D.C. escort service and Republican Louisiana Sen. David Vitter and the –female — hookers. (Do those last two guys get a pass for just nailing women?)
I mean, can we just agree that from this point forward any politician or evangelist who declares themselves pro-family values and makes a huge, vote-getting, money-making scene about ripping gay marriage decrying the slippery slope from gayness to turtle sex is in effect acknowledging both their own closeted homosexuality and an affinity for a little clandestine quick-and-dirty, probably in a noisy john, with meth and without?
It is so far beyond easy satire, Jon Stewart’s gotta be stumped.
By the way, check out these characters reenacting Sen. Wide Stance’s Lindbergh Terminal shtick.
Why didn’t Shelby and Vascellaro do this?
Also, Glenn Greenwald at Salon has a terrific “then and now” with right-wing bloggers and pundits excoriating, Mike Rogers, the guy who blogged about Wide Stance last October … and what they are saying today. His post comes with every imaginable link to all things Wide and Stancey.
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